Projects/Activities

Projektet har til formål at forlænge og forbedre monitering af to strømsystemer gennem færøsk territorialfarvand, som udveksler vand, varme og salt mellem Arktis og resten af Verdenshavet. Den ene af disse er strømmen af koldt vand fra Arktis gennem dybet af Færøbanke kanalen, som transporterer varme og kuldioxid fra atmosfæren ned i Verdenshavets dybe vandmasser. Den anden er Færøstrømmen, som er den stærkeste transportør af ocean varme mod Arktis med indvirkning på klima, fiskebestande og isudbredelse. Endvidere vil projektet studere opsplitningen af Færøstrømmen i to separate strømgrene med forskellig indflydelse på forskellige områder og processer i Arktis. Projektet vil omfatte feltaktivitet fra sommer 2017 til sommer 2018 med udlagte måleinstrumenter og tilsammen fire hydrografiske togter med forskningsskib. Indsamlede måledata vil blive analyseret sammen med satellit­data og historiske observationer med henblik på at forlænge de ca. 20 år lange tidsserier for de to strømsystemers transporter samt at rationalisere det eksisterende moniteringssystem, således at det i fremtiden vil være mindre afhængigt af kostbare in situ målinger.

Denmark has obligations according to the agreements in the Montreal Protocol, ie. for the monitoring of the ozone layer. This project is a fullfilment of these obligations, and the work is being supported by the Danish Environment Protection Agency (Danish EPA) through a DANCEA funding. Recommandations for the monitoring are updated every 3rd year via the Ozone Research Managers (ORM) Meeting at WMO in Geneva. The most recent meeting was in 2017. The monitoring program was initiated in 2002. The current partnership consists of Latmos (FR), NASA (US) and DMI (DK). Monitoring of the ozone layer and measurement of the UV radiation currently takes place in 2 locations in Greenland: Kangerlussuaq and Ittoqqortoormiit. In Kangerlussuaq the instrumentation consists of a Brewer spectrometer capable of measuring the ozone column and doing UVB scans, a SAOZ spectrometer measuring ozone and NO2, and an Aeronet Sun Photometer (hosted for NASA). In Ittoqqortoormiit the instrumentation consists of an ozone balloon borne sounding station, a SAOZ spectrometer (hosted for Latmos), a GUV 2511 broadband instrument and an Aeronet Sun Photometer (hosted for NASA). Retrieved data is uploaded to international databases (WOUDC, NDACC & NILU). Retrieved data is used to correct satellite measurements and to monitor the state of the ozone layer.

The GeoBasis Disko monitoring program started in 2017 as a part of the cross disciplinary Greenland Environmental Monitoring (GEM) program. GeoBasis Disko is an integrated part of the GeoBasis program, following the same standards as in Nuuk and Zackenberg (two other GEM sites) and largely focusing on the same parameters and methodologies. GeoBasis Disko is finaced by Danish Ministry of Energy, Utilities and Climate.

A close collaboration and synergy with Arctic Station that is manned year round makes it possible to collect and carry out measurements also during winter.As location Qeqertarsuaq on the south coast of the Disko island, represent a Greenlandic west coast climate, with annual mean temperatures just below 0°C, with discontinuous permafrost, and as such remarkably different from the two existing GEM sites. Further, the Disko bay area is highly interesting from a socioeconomic perspective due its high population and active fishery industry, and as one of the most popular tourist destinations in Greenland.

The primary objective of GeoBasis Disko is to establish baseline knowledge on the dynamics of fundamental abiotic terrestrial parameters within the environment/ecosystem around Arctic Station. This is done through a long term collection of data that includes the following sub-topics;

• Snow properties; including spatial and temporal variation in snow cover, depth and density.
• Soil properties; spatially distributed monitoring of key soil parameters such as temperature, moisture, and concentration of nutrient ions
• Meteorology; monitoring of essential meteorological variables across various surface types and elevations.
• Gas Flux monitoring; plot and landscape scale flux monitoring of CO2, H2O and energy in wet and dry ecosystems.
• Hydrology; monitoring of seasonal variation in river water discharge, chemistry and suspended sediment.
• Geomorphology; monitoring of shorelines, coastal cliff foots and cross-shore profiles.

GeoBasis focuses on selected abiotic parameters in order to describe the state of Arctic terrestrial environments and their potential feedback effects in a changing climate. As such, inter-annual variation and long-term trends are of paramount importance.

In 2013 a new ecosystem monitoring programme “DiskoBasis” was initiated at Arctic Station on Disko Island, Greenland. The project is partly funded by the Danish Energy Agency. The primary objective of DiskoBasis is to establish baseline knowledge on the dynamics of fundamental physical parameters within the environment/ecosystem around Arctic Station. This initiative extends and complements the existing monitoring carried out at Arctic Station by including several new activities –especially within the terrestrial and hydrological/fluvial field. DiskoBasis include collection of data in the following sub-topics; • Gas flux, meteorology and energy balance • Snow, ice and permafrost • Soil and soil water chemistry • Vegetation phenology • Hydrology -River water discharge and chemistry • Limnology -Lake water chemistry • Marine -Sea water chemistry

The WOW project is a cooperation between Havstovan (Faroe Marine Research Institute, HAV) and the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) to 1) measure the overflow of cold water from the Arctic into the rest of the World Ocean through the Western Valley of the Iceland-Faroe Ridge, to 2) allow the effects of this flow to be adequately simulated in climate model projections of the thermohaline circulation and the heat transport towards the Arctic, and to 3) design a low-cost monitoring system for this flow.

Fresh water quality monitoring program is designed to collect long term water quality data from lakes and rivers. It serves EU obligated data collection among other interests. The data is used to detect variation in time in the measured variables and to assess the physiological and chemical state of the water body. The program is managed by the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE). Regional centres for economic development, transport and the environment are responsible for the field work needed for maintaining the monitoring stations. Monitoring frequency varies between locations from annual to once in three, six or 12 years.

The GeoBasis programme collects data describing the physical and geomorphological environment in Zackenberg, North East Greenland. This includes meteorology, carbon flux and energy exchange, snow cover and permafrost, soil moisture, –chemistry and nutrient balance, hydrology, river discharge and – sediment

The purpose of the BioBasis programme is to monitor basic qualitative and quantitative elements of biodiversity in the terrestrial ecosystems at Zackenberg in Northeast Greenland. The programme provides data on typical High Arctic species and processes that can be expected to react on year to year variation in climate as well as long-term climate change. It includes 30 variables of terrestrial and limnic plant, arthropod, bird and mammal dynamics in the Zackenberg valley.

Monitoring climatological and hydrological parameters in a low arctic environment.

National Environmental Monitoring in Sweden in the "Air" programme. The objective of the project is to follow climate-changing gases and particles and which effects they could have on the climate of earth. To understand and assess the human effect on the climate, regionally and globally, the atmospheric aerosols and greenhouse gases are monitored. The project aims follow: (i) detecting long-term trends in the carbon dioxide level, as well as trends in the amount or composition of aerosols in the background atmosphere; (ii) provide a basis to study the processes that control the aerosol life cycle from their formation through aging and transformation, until being removed from the atmosphere; (iii) provide a basis to study the processes (sources, sinks, and transport pathways) that control the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; (iv) contribute to the global network of stations that perform continous measurements of atmospheric particles and trace gases to determine their effect on the earths radiation balance and interaction with clouds and climate.

National Environmental Monitoring in Sweden in "Air" programme and sub-programme "the thickness of the ozon layer". The project follows changes in the thickness of the ozone layer in the atmosphere over Sweden.

Ice sheet meltwater and sediment discharge is measured at only very few sites in Greenland. The measurements provide detailed insights into ice sheet surface melting, englacial meltwater routing, subglacial erosion, etc., and their importance increase with the lengthening of the time series. Monitoring was initiated by IGN (Copenhagen University) in 2006, and taken over by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland in 2014. Data are available through the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (www.PROMICE.dk).

At the Zeppelin Station on Svalbard, Stockholm University, Department of Environmental Science and Analytical Chemistry (ACES) measures trends in atmospheric carbon dioxide in background atmosphere (Table 4, #1.6, Table 5, ##3–4). In collaboration with NOAA/CMDL in Boulder, USA, air is regularly sampled in flasks for analysis of CO2, CH4, CO, 13CO2, H2, N2O, SF6, and 18O in CO2. At the top of the micrometeorological tower (102 m) at Norunda north of Uppsala, carbon dioxide and methane concentrations are also measured (Fig. 2, Table 5, #5). Other sites for CO2 measurements are the flux sites described below. Air samples are taken at 10 sites in northern Sweden for analysis of SO2, NO2, and surface-near ozone (Fig. 2, Table 4, #1.2) in the air- and precipitation chemistry network. At the Zeppelin Station on Svalbard, Stockholm University, Department of Environmental Science and Analytical Chemistry (ACES) also measures the amount and composition of aerosols in the background atmosphere. Measurements include particle concentration and size distribution, light absorption and scattering, and cloud residual properties (cloud residuals are the particles which took part in cloud droplet or ice crystal formation)

Arctic study of trophospheric aerosol, clouds and radiation

Important progress has been made in recent decades to describe and understand how arctic terrestrial vertebrate interact, especially concerning predator-prey interactions. Indirect interactions between different prey species modulated by shared predators (e.g. Arctic fox) are believed to have important impacts on the structure and/or dynamics of some communities. Yet, our understanding of these types of interactions is still fragmentary. To fill that gap, we will build on ongoing projects exploring related questions in Canada (Marie-Andrée Giroux, Nicolas Lecomte, Joël Bêty) and Greenland (Olivier Gilg, Niels M. Schmidt), while taking advantage of existing networks (ADSN in North America and “Interactions” program in Greenland and Eurasia). The aim of the project is to promote the implementation of several common protocols that will (1) improve each collaborator’s knowledge at the site level and, more importantly, that will (2) be merged across sites and years to improve our understanding of the functioning and the influence of indirect interactions on arctic vertebrate communities in general.

Five types of data have been identified (by the 5 initiators of the project already mentioned above) as being mandatories to answer questions related to this topic. These data sets will be collected using 5 specific protocols described in the following chapters:

1. Monitor predation pressure using artificial nests
2. Monitor real predation pressure on Calidris nests using Tiny Tags
3. Observations of predators and lemmings (3b: fox scats DNA barcoding)
4. Assessing lemming (or “rodent”) relative abundance using different methods
5. Assessing “herbivores” (excl. rodents) relative abundance using “faeces transects”

Monitoring and forecast of the sea and atmosphere state in the coastal area, support of safety of navigation and marine activities. Main gaps: Initial data before 1977 have not been digitized.

Fluvial transport, its dynamics and structure, constitute a good indicator of the condition of the natural environment in various climatic zones. Analysis of fluvial transport components allows for precise determination of the rate and directions of transformations of geosystems of any importance. In the polar zone, very sensitive to global changes, it seems expedient to identify the mechanisms and structure of fluvial transport, particularly in the conditions of the observed glacier retreat, the main alimentation source of proglacial rivers. Studies carried out in the zone revealed difficulties in determination of fluvial transport structure, particularly the actual bedload of gravel-bed rivers based on direct measurements, resulting from: short measurement series, lack of standardization of research methods and measurement equipment, and strategy of selection of study objects and sampling. The research project presented concerns determination of mechanisms of fluvial transport and sediment supply to Arctic gravel-bed river channels. The mechanisms reflect the processes of adaptation of proglacial rivers of the Arctic zone to changing environmental conditions, and indicate the dominant directions of transformations of paraglacial geosystems of various importance. For studies on Arctic geosystems, the region of the south Bellsund (SW Spitsbergen) was selected due to extensive knowledge on its hydro-meteorological and glacial-geomorphological conditions, and long-term measurement series carried out by the research station of the MCSU, among others within the framework of the international monitoring network: SEDIBUD (IAG) and Small-CATCHMENT program. For detailed studies, rivers with various hydrological regimes were selected, functioning at the forefield of the Scott and Renard Glaciers. The Scott River glacial catchment and glacier-free catchments of the Reindeer Stream and the Wydrzyca Stream (with a snow-permafrost hydrological regime) meet the selection criteria for representative test catchments analyzed for the following programs: SEDIFLUX, SEDIBUD, and POP.